Does or can 中村 mean "villager" (person) or only "middle village" (place name)? Would alternate Kanji make a difference in meaning, i.e., 中邑 仲村 仲邑 ? Thank you.
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5Can you explain why you think it might mean villager? What has prompted your question? – user3856370 Dec 05 '20 at 16:59
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1All these kanji pairs are ways to write なかむら, a common Japanese surname. I don't think it has the meaning of "villager" though. Do you have a sentence where 中村 appeared in? – Dec 05 '20 at 17:47
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someone insists on 'inside'-village---->"villager" (i say "middle village" [place name]_if anything) – hanna.banana Dec 05 '20 at 20:14
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1If you mean 'etymologically related' by 'mean' (Like, Mr Smith is rarely a blacksmith, and nowadays the name doesn't even imply his family being one), I'd assume 中村 has its root in a description for location rather than vague 'villager'. – Yosh Dec 06 '20 at 02:35
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First of all, 中村 is never used outside proper names (surnames or place names) today. Etymologically it isn't "villager" either.
If somebody says 中村 literally means "(who lives) inside village", it violates the Japanese grammar. Here, the English word inside is a preposition, which Japanese does not have any. It should be instead like 村中【むらなか】 "village's inside" to convey that meaning. Incidentally, it's another existing surname.
中 is qualifying 村 in 中村, and since 中 means middle or center, "middle village" is indeed a possible translation, but a more context-aware rendering is "main village".
PS
Japanese proper names are full of ateji. Except for the case of homonyms, the kanji spelling doesn't contribute to the meaning difference.
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